THE blue tide washing over English football reached new corners yesterday as Chelsea players closed in on the first of the season’s annual awards. Half of the six nominees for the Professional Footballers’ Association’s Player of the Year are from Stamford Bridge and it is likely that one of those, probably either John Terry or Frank Lampard, will be declared the winner on Sunday week, by which time their team may already have clinched the Barclays Premiership crown.

That would be Chelsea’s first championship success in 50 years and their sudden emergence as title challengers would be reflected by their first PFA triumph should Terry, Lampard or Petr Cech be chosen. Thierry Henry, Steven Gerrard and Andy Johnson are the other contenders for an award first handed out in 1974, although Gianfranco Zola was honoured by the Football Writers’ Association in 1997.

“You would be hard-pressed to choose between them (Lampard and Terry) as they go head-to-head for the award,” Gordon Taylor, the PFA chief executive, said. “It’s going to be a close-run thing. Frank was knocking on the door last year when he finished second to Thierry Henry and, like John Terry, he’s taken his game to a new level under José Mourinho (the Chelsea coach).”

For all the talk of Chelsea’s togetherness, Terry and Lampard have been head and shoulders above their colleagues this season, although Cech’s bid to be the first goalkeeping winner of the PFA award since Peter Shilton in 1978 has been helped by the fact that costly errors started to creep into his game only in recent weeks, after most of the voting had taken place. Votes were cast during March and early April by all Premiership and Football League players, while each player also selected his best XI from his own division.

Either Terry, the central defender who is the bookmakers’ favourite, or Lampard, the midfield player, should become only the second English winner since 1997, Teddy Sheringham having bucked the trend in 2001. Henry, the Arsenal and France striker, has won for the past two seasons and is nominated for a fifth successive year.

The Young Player of the Year nominations will also delight Sven-Göran Eriksson as it also contains four Englishmen. Wayne Rooney, Jermain Defoe, Stewart Downing and Shaun Wright-Phillips, who have all played for the Swede this season, are joined by Arjen Robben and Cristiano Ronaldo.

The appearances of Ronaldo, outstanding early in the season, and Rooney, who has finally found form since the turn of the year, at least gives Manchester United some recognition but this is their second consecutive failure to be represented among the six contenders for the main award. Given that Chelsea are keen to sign Gerrard, the Liverpool midfield player, and Wright-Phillips, the Manchester City winger, this summer, the gap between the two clubs may be even greater when the 2006 nominations are announced.

Defoe, predictably, has support from Martin Jol, his head coach at Tottenham Hotspur, for the young player award, for which under-23s are eligible. “I’m his coach and I think he deserves this award,” the Dutchman said. “Stewart Downing is in the same situation at Middlesbrough (as is Wright-Phillips at City) but the others are all established players and they play for the top sides. Arjen Robben probably plays for the best side in Europe (Chelsea). It is easier when you play for a top side.”

If that is true, Johnson deserves particular credit for forcing his way into the nominations despite playing for a Crystal Palace side lying nineteenth in the Premiership. The striker has scored 18 league goals this season, albeit that nine have come from penalties, and is the leading English scorer in the Premiership.

AND THE WINNERS ARE . . .

Past ten recipients of the PFA Player of the Year award:

2004 Thierry Henry (Arsenal)

2003 Henry

2002 Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United)

2001 Teddy Sheringham (Manchester United)

2000 Roy Keane (Manchester United)

1999 David Ginola (Tottenham Hotspur)

1998 Dennis Bergkamp (Arsenal)

1997 Alan Shearer (Newcastle United)

1996 Les Ferdinand (Newcastle United)

1995 Shearer (Blackburn Rovers)

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